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Rolando told us about Vivir del Cuento (The Stories We Tell), a sketch-comedy television show that airs on Monday nights.
“It is the most popular show on TV and all of Cuba watches it,” Rolando said.
The week that I interviewed Rolando, there was one particular skit that addressed Cuba’s dreaded food rationing card. When it was first introduced there were 40 items rationed to residents. The list has dwindled to seven: rice, beans, cooking oil, flour, milk, chicken and fish. The Cuban government imposes rationing to ensure all residents have access to essential food items. But there is no guarantee that everything will be available.
It is especially ironic, though, that fish are not plentiful in the markets of this island nation. In fact I watched a group of fishermen trying their hand along the famed Malecón, a broad promenade, roadway and seawall which stretches nearly 5 miles along the coast from the mouth of Havana Harbor in Old Havana to the Vedado neighborhood.
In the Vivir del Cuento skit, an old man begins with a question, “Should he buy chicken or should he buy fish?” The seller asks, “Do you want chicken?” The old man says, "No, Fish!" After about three times of asking for fish, he acquiesces and agrees to chicken. The seller says, "See! Chicken for fish." The joke, as it turns out, is that fish is rarely available in Cuba's rationing store, but there is plenty of chicken.
After meeting with Rolando, our group met with a number of people, including government officials, who had all seen the skit and repeated the punchline, "Chicken for fish."
Alicia Centelles, a radio journalist in Havana, put it in perspective.
"The humor can crush the balls of the pure thinking...maybe you can find a comedian who is talking about a subject that in the paper or the radio you cannot see or listen to, but the comedian says it...people will say the comedian is very brave...but everybody laughs."